She Built a House to TRAP Ghosts | Winchester Mystery House

08-11-26

Episode Transcription

00:00 Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of you going fishing today? What is this? Oh, I forgot. I this on. Yeah, I forgot. I was like, Oh, I forgot. I was wearing this. My is my best button up. Uh, pardon it up. 00:17 I was being mean. was why do you have this vest or set? I don't know. I just want to work it in a while. This is my old. It's my old hardcore shirt, shirt, vest. There you go. Yeah. Show us the buttons and the patches. This is a, this is the red brick army. We are the red brick army. Who's the red brick army? 00:39 us. Is that a is that a steam is the red brick army, a group that we should be concerned about? Is here? I mentioned this ready, ready, see the back 00:50 Here's your weekly pay. If you add that attitude to it, it does. It's way worse. Changes it. Yeah, you like don't have to do like, but like the people they want to make an honest living. They don't want to get money. Nobody wants to just give money for nothing. Anyway, I don't think that's true. Things I learned last night. 01:20 Oh yeah, the devil in the cross hairs. It's pretty sick, so I wore this and I thought it was so cool. This this came with sleeves, but I got too big for him and I cut him off. Do you really yeah? Yeah, no, I bought this. I will never forget. I bought this at Pacsun. It was like I pretty sure it was the first time I went to the mall on my own and like sixth grade. I bought this at Pacsun. I thought it was so sick. Wore it for years and then on my arms went fit in anymore because I got too big and then 01:49 course for real for real. I was gonna fit it anymore. It is a little tight. It is small. It is yeah and then in high school I was like I could cut the sleeves off that and make my vest yeah and then I put the patches on my grandma. So the patches on I thought it was so cool. They're pretty sick and then I wore it paintballing. It was cool. This is your paint ball vest. Yeah, this is the one that I got shut down the middle in anyways. Have you ever heard of you hear? Did you hear him? It's strong to breathe from 02:18 for audio listener. You gotta understand all he did was stand up and turn around. I've tried. says down. He's like, I'm not struggling to breathe for moving this. It's maybe worse. It's maybe worse. I'm struggling to read for Panda Express, Panda Express, to be an express, knock the wind out of me. So I was literally, I posted that thing on threads yesterday about Archer getting some processed food for the first time and him being like wired. Yeah, and I posted it, you know, 02:46 probably not related, but could be like it's the first time he's had like a lot a decent amount of sugar and your ups and stuff and then RFK junior personally respond. I had really kind of messed him up a little bit. You know, I think it did. It did bring a certain kind of people out of the wood. What better if babies go outside and kill their own birds? What I think for the best of babies go on side and kill their own birds, but okay. 03:13 I got to start. I don't know that we got back. We got back from lunch. We literally did just get Panda Express. Yeah and someone commented and they're like yeah, but you're biased because you like you like healthy food. So you think that the unhealthy food is what the problem was and I was like I was like. Oh, you don't know that I just housed orange chicken in Beijing beef. I was like. I just got bad express. You don't know what I love process foods, big process food guy over here. 03:42 we should we should one day between shoots there. I saw the pizza hut across the street. They're trying to stay in business. You know they got a sign. This is all you can eat lunch buffet. Oh, I didn't know that should we shoot. I love a pizza, a buffet twenty years ago. Yeah, I'm hope. I wonder if I think they trying to bring it back. I have heard that it's an all you can eat pizza and salad. Should we? Should we run it? We should. Should we run it after this episode? 04:10 second lunch. It won't be lunch. All you can eat pizza buffet and then we come back and then we're both just sitting here like 04:18 Yeah, yeah, I do think about my hometown had a pizza above a and we would go there a lot with our friends and I just I did a lot of pizza. You know it's funny and it's back. What's crazy is how much your body can't handle what you used to put in it. You know, I know it is funny to think about that, but it is funny to look back at the pizza buffet because they had the buffet of all the pizza slices 04:47 but as like garnish to the buffet, they just covered it in lettuce, but it was like this lettuce is not free. Oh yeah, it's only around the yeah. It's just on the bed of the bed of ice and a little bit of lettuce on the outside. Yeah, but don't touch that. Let us. You should not eat that. You should not eat that. Hey, there's a couple rules when you come to the pizza buffet. Just be aware. Don't eat the lettuce and don't go in a tunnel. 05:15 all right. There's tolls on it. Let's rip it thing. What's your episode about today? Have you ever happy August fourth everybody? Go ahead, happy, happy two hundred and fifty and one month. We're like step dads who forgot your birthday. We're like hey, it was a champ. Hey, hey, hey, everybody. Happy birthday. I brought fireworks. You think I would forget your birthday? Hey, 05:44 I made these my own. I made my own fireworks. He's got an uncle who does that makes his own fireworks. That's a very Midwestern thing to do yeah homemade fireworks. Anyways, have you ever heard of a Sarah Winchester, Sarah Winchester? No, is that her maiden name? Oh, she's an old we're talking about somebody in the eighteen hundreds. Here's another picture of her. That's her head. 06:12 that's not her like actual head that right. That's like a that's like a little. I'm pretty confident it's not her this looks like chainsaw art. Yeah, you know it's a it's a it's a bust of her head and she's wearing her hat. It's definitely like a stop yeah and it's like it's like it's either wooden or I don't know what that's made out of but yeah, it's probably what is probably a stomp and then that's kind of her. You're right. That's very low res. It's an old photo. It's like early photography. Yeah, Sarah Winchester 06:40 Okay, by the best picture we have of her. It's not a real photo. Yeah, it's a painting. It's a painting. Yeah, so yeah, okay, so I got an idea who she is Sarah Winchester. She was born in an eighteen thirty nine K and she was born in Connecticut. Her family was like kind of a well to do family. Whatever she met a guy, she met a guy by the name of William worked Winchester. This is him 07:10 Yeah, I like this style. I like a guy he's got the who is the president that has this beard, brother be Hayes who's got that beard? No, it's it's he's right after he's right after James Garfield. He was he was his he was his yeah vice president. Is that Taft? No, no, it's not that's that's it's Chester. Yes, yeah, Chester Chester Chester Chester Chester. I'm pulling up 07:36 all the presidents James a Garfield's vice president was Chester Chester Chester Cheetah Cheat Chester Cheat. Does Grover Cleveland also have that hair? That was a pretty popular haircut, yeah Chester Arthur Chester Arthur. So anyways, she was I was saying that we got here. How we got here was the facial hair was that he does the thing where his beard and I don't know what maybe it's because you drop too much food on your chin. You got 08:06 clear some space, but they do the thing where they shave their chin and leave that whole gap open. So you can just see a straight shot to their neck and then they just have within the ball down the side. Yeah, it's like handlebars, but if it just kept going up the sides, you know yeah yeah. So she married a will this guy William Winchester at she interesting. You don't have a bust of his head though. Yeah, yeah, so she's the important one. 08:36 shout out to women's rights. I don't know if I would say she's the important one. She's the one I'm just going to clip me going shout out to women's rights and you going no context because it seems like you're not to get you're not for them shout out to women. 08:55 and with that vest they're going to draw some conclusions buddy, so they got very they got married in eighteen sixty two and at the time his dad. His name is Oliver Oliver Winchester. This is him who looks like looks like a church hill type figure very much very and when at the time he was a shirt manufacturer okay, and so like they kind of had like a modest living 09:23 they got married. They're living their life. Civil War kicks off Williams dad, which side are they on? They're actually for the north. Okay, they're very progressive. They thought that everyone was a person and you should treat them like that very pro sure sure sure sure for the time for the time yeah, but all of her had a clever idea. They they were just fighting for the north and they were like. I don't care about all the slavery stuff. I just want 09:52 public transportation. What are you talking about? We want horses running on a route, a single route. Yeah, the city should pay for it. They should pay for it. So she shows up yeah yeah and so after the civil during the civil war her dad, their all of her death, wait Williams dad Oliver has an idea to make a gun that could fire repeat. Okay, yeah, this is the Winchester right there. We go and they become 10:20 well unbelievably wealthy. Yes, basically overnight and so they move in and Connecticut. They get a house on Prospect Hill in New Haven, Connecticut, massive twenty thousand square foot mansion with twenty ribs, marble floors, decorative fireplaces, chandeliers, arch windows, plaster work ceilings and a circular drive in the front. There's just a circular drive, yeah, just a picture of wealth in a circular drive eighteen sixties. Yeah, yeah, 10:47 What do mean a circuit? What are you looking to be like that for? It's a circular drive, huh? Yeah, it's probably wrapped around a fountain. You came in wrapped around a fountain. Sure. Yeah. What do you, what do you want? What are you looking at? I like that for it. They do valet or do they do? I don't know, man. I'm just reading a Wikipedia article. I'm just sitting here reading a Wikipedia article to you. Don't ask questions. All right, and then there was a series of unfortunate events starting in June, eighteen sixty nine. 11:17 Well, actually, I should say starting in June, eighteen sixty six, they had their first daughter named Annie and unfortunately Annie suffered from Rasmus. Do know what that is? No, Rasmus is like a really rare condition where essentially your body can't process nutrients from food. So you just are no matter how much you You start to death and so the child did not survive long and died within a month after birth, which was devastating for the family. And so I kind of withdrew from society for over a year. They were just kind of 11:47 Sad. And, and then in 1868, they completed the house. moved into the house. 1869, Sally's dad died. We don't know exactly what killed her, what killed him, but the theory is possibly rheumatoid arthritis. And then in 1880, Sally lost three other family members. And then her mother died in 1880. Her father, Oliver Winchester, father-in-law, Oliver Winchester, owner of the company. 12:17 dies in December of that same year and then in eighteen eighty one her husband names her executor of the family trust. Okay, and then shortly after he dies from tuberculosis. And so in the quarter course of like about a decade, she loses basically the whole family. Yeah. And so but she's the executor of the Winchester family fortune. Right. And so she inherits in eighteen eighty dollars, twenty million dollars. 12:47 which adjusted for inflation is $657 million today. Holy cow. 12:59 Everything must go till it's going out of business and so our patron is now six ninety nine people will freak out. They don't know we're joking till it is not going out of business. That was a joke, but we are reducing the price of patriot to six ninety nine for all tears you get. 13:12 every part you get access to discord, you get access to every episode. have you hype it this much. It seems like gosh it is high. I know, but when you talk like that, it seems like we're really sell. I'm I was trying to do a word selling bit. know, was like I don't I'm a sleazy sales. I want to make it that I straight up think that we've been doing that bit too long that people are like it's a little 13:35 This is the first time I've ever done the bit before I was a sleazy. we did the whole hey, Tuesday, Tuesday, we did those bits. Just leave it all in. Do this whole join us on Patreon. 13:51 only that, she inherits that wealth, but she also has 50 % of Winchester. And so she inherits cash, 657 million today's dollars, but also has 50 % of Winchester. And so she's making $1,000 a day, which she got adjusted for inflation is $25,000 just every day. She's just making 25,000 on top of her 20 million, which is just crazy. So unfathomably wealthy is the picture. 14:21 I want you to get here okay, but crazy decade of just unfathomable loss right so like she gained so much and she lost so much and so she after all it takes. What are you willing to lose? That's what it takes. So she spins basically a few gap years on the seashore in cancelling seashells. Thank you. She's a fira soul. She sells on the seashore 14:51 That's where we get it from. And then she took a trip to Europe and then she came back home and she saw a medium by the name of Adam Kuhn. And Adam says, golly, you got to give me all your money. Adam sees her and Adam talks to the dad and she says to, or he says to her, says, Sarah, the debtor telling me that you need to make things right. And they're going to haunt you until you do because of all the lives that your guns have taken. 15:19 also just on hauntings right. If you think of the eighteen hundreds either been in a room with just one candle lit, it looks pretty ghost. It looks like there's ghost. mean it's pretty terrifying. you know, so I mean that's have we talked about on the podcast where the idea that goes float come from? No, this it comes from early. You're looking at me like we have always at the botox. Sorry, 15:50 Yeah. I had too much Botox. I can't do anything. I'm looking really surprised. Oh, it was early. It was early film. 16:20 they would project ghosts onto the walls and stuff like for movies on the screen. And I guess like the way early film worked, it was like not high quality. There was a big bokeh effect. So you couldn't see the feet because of the bokeh effect on the shot. And so they filmed it with the ghost having feet like walking around, but in the shot, it looked like they were floating and it just caught everyone's just like, Oh, ghost float. 16:45 And so before that, if you look at like historically ghost mythology before that, they walked. But after those early film movies, they started to float everywhere. Really interesting. Yeah. Because of weird technology quirk. Huh. Anyways, so they were floating. Well, they know they were walking at her time. Actually, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Now that I'm saying this out loud, this makes a lot of sense in context to the story. Interesting. OK, so. OK. 17:12 So she believes in go. She's she thinks she's being haunted by her family, not her family from the people that her guns have killed. Her family's guns have killed, you know, wanting her good. She's kind of an Alfred noble situation. Like she's like, she's like, my family's invented all these guns and put all these guns in the world. And now the people who we've killed with our guns are coming for me. And so she, she, after meeting this or talking to this medium, 17:42 She moves to the West Coast. She's like, I gotta get as far away from them as possible. Yeah. And so she was the West Coast and she buys, she was a house called the, I'm guessing this is pronounced Yanada Villa. It's L L a N A D A in Santa Clara Valley Valley. This is the house that she bought. Oh, sick. 18:07 and when she bought it, this was a little nine room how wonderful house as a little nine room house, a little nine room mouth, not a big deal and she while I should say while she was in New Haven, Connecticut, they did a lot of projects and she ignited a passion for architecture and design. Okay, and so she when she went in this house now having basically unlimited money right just kept expanding, just kept adding stuff. Oh, 18:38 Oh yeah, for audio listener, this is now a full like castle. mean, it's like imagine that you have like a house. Go back to the original picture. Is this all that's left standing or is it a smart angle where it doesn't show everything? There's some context there. Okay, so I burned down good. So the front of this house is like what kind of architecture would you, would you call this like there's like those like round? Yeah, it's kind of a mix of like 19:06 tutor and a mix of like I don't know yeah. There's like sharp peaks yeah, a little Italian with the red tile roof red tile roof, but also kind of cottage. Yeah, just a good mix of all the stuff right yeah and then the second picture hit. The second picture is just like take a house at a room 19:27 and then add another room to the house and then just keep doing that over and over rooms to the room you add. You're adding to yeah. Yeah, you're not making it look like it belongs to that addition. This is a very clearly an additional thing and then also in the back you start going up. Yeah, and you build a little like what looks like a church tower back there. Yeah, it just keeps going up and so you have to have a watch tower. You gotta have guards now to watch over your gigantic property. Holy cow. So want you to see a footprint of this from the sky. This is like a 19:57 This is wow. It is it gets pretty big pretty quick right and in fact we actually do have like a virtual tour. This is a screenshot from a virtual tour. Oh my gosh. The house this is this is just one floor obviously probably the first floor. What do you even do with all this? Well, so this don't go in the tunnels. So this is the story. She got this house specifically 20:26 Well, I guess a couple things are going on here. She has a lot of money and she wants to to architecture is her passion, so she's doing that, but also she's decides the ghosts are after me. I'm to make an elaborate maze of the ghosts can't come through yeah, no way, so she's like if I make this a labran, okay, but this is I have said this on the podcast before. I have to build a house right because the ghosts don't know the layout. 20:50 you know, talking about if you live in a house that ghosts have lived in, they know where the rooms are. They know what they're there for, but if you build a house fresh layout, all right, I don't care how haunted that land is. They don't know the wall there. You know that that was her mindset, so she's fully building a maze for ghosts. She's building a ghost labyrinth, and so when you go through the house, what's crazy about this is you go through and there's staircases where they curve and the steps have weird angles on them. Here's another one 21:19 They go staircases just go up to nothing and they stop which and this is important to know for her is so much creepier than just go. I have a house freaks me out, but at least the ghosts get lost like the house is so much scarier. Yeah, here's another weird staircase and a ghost situation going on and then yeah, here's another spiral staircase. There are 21:48 doors that just go out door to nowhere of the house and yeah, and then there's staircases where it's like there's obviously a wide stairwell that she just shrunk really tight. There are rooms where she just covered the room in glass that goes through to a bunch of windows in like a display huh and then like weird dome rooms. This room actually looks like if you finished it would be pretty sick, but it also looks like the scene 22:16 of a scary movie. This is where that girl that the family's bought this house and their daughters upstairs in this dome room playing with dolls and then there's something behind that mirror over there, but we're not going to show you what it is. Yeah, we're not going to let you know, you know, because it's daylight, but at night time yeah, okay. I'm just saying if you want to make a place look haunted, that's how you do it. Yeah, yeah, I think the way she's doing it is exactly right. She's almost like hey ghosts. 22:47 You guys want to listen more cool? Well, honestly, that's interesting you say that because it is kind of there is a new thing right now. We've talked about Cloudflare. They're like the security system underneath the Internet. They just recently, about a year ago, launched this thing called the Labyrinth, the Cloudflare Labyrinth. And what it is is it checks the traffic when you try to hit a website. And so whenever you've ever had a website, it's like you see that screen where it's like, are you a human? And it like loads for a second and then it lets you through. That's the Cloudflare Labyrinth. And if it detects that you're a bot. 23:16 what it does is it just takes you through what they call aberrant and it's just a set of links that just links it through endlessly and gets that bot lost in their labyrinth and so they're trying. They're actually setting up honey pots to catch these bots and then just get them stuck yeah in their labyrinth and that's the system and so it's very similar. I did spend four hours the other day trying to click into a website on cloud flip and I was like Lee these capsules are really annoying. I spent six hours doing I spent twelve hours 23:43 I was embarrassed to be just like I spent sixteen. I spent four days in a little like clicking through the thing. I was embarrassed. I was looking at a nine seven for ranger. I was trying to look at that picture of that for ranger and the clapper was like this. I went to a of ranger pictures. He did not be a real person as a forward ranger hot search. 24:11 for a range. Look at that for right. It's crazy. Okay, yeah, that's the exact idea, but for ghosts. Oh yeah, it's like we make a place that ghost you're gonna love and then we get stuck in there. Yeah, so that's what she was doing. Does she live there? Yeah, 24:32 Yeah, she lives there, so she's got she knew her way around. She's got her own little pad. Yeah, she's got her secret ways through this house or secret ways. Yeah, yeah, she's got her like side paths that get her through the house quicker. It's kind of like ikea where you got the side doors that get you through faster. It's kind of like when I work the cruise ships. Yeah, all the guest areas look. You know, I don't want to say that nice. They looked cool in the nineties. They're designed, they're designed, they're nice, but the second you go to the back area, it's like this whole thing is just a metal thing. Huh? It's like it's just like universal. 25:02 Yeah, exactly. When you to the back, you're just like oh, you guys just painted the front of that sign. Huh? Didn't even care about the back of it. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, never mind, but yeah, you want stuff. A side is gone. You realize what yeah, what it is and that's what she was doing for ghosts cool. So she spent years here hiding from the ghosts and long story. That was her main motivation for buying this whole house was just trying to you know, trying to outrun ghosts. 25:35 BINGDA! 25:38 So here's the thing is the thing it's still open today and it does tours today. Do they do ghost tours? They do the ghost tours. They do the thing. This is the story, but it's not it's not exactly true. We don't know for sure if she ever even saw a medium. What happened was she had rheumatoid arthritis as well, okay, and so she bought this house. She had architecture was her passion and she had more money than she needed. She also lived in 26:07 the Santa Clara Valley in the middle of the Great Depression, right? And work was hard to come by. And so there's some theories that she was doing all these expansions just to make sure everybody in her community had a job because she had endless money. And she was like, just keep expanding. Let's do construction. Yeah. And so they were just keep building onto her house and she just kept these projects going partially to keep jobs going, partially because she liked the, the, the adding on your house. Could just give them 26:35 money. I'm not going to let them. I'm not going to just give them away. We're not going to do any handouts out. Nobody. I, I worked for my, don't you build a staircase to nowhere? You lazy bomb. 26:51 couldn't just give them the no add another room, make it a spiral staircase to nowhere. Yeah, yeah, you poor sack of great like that feels worse. I mean I feels worse. I guess you're trying to make it seem like she was really just trying to take care of the people in her neighborhood. No, she wasn't. She was trying to exploit the people in her neighborhood to build an extra labrinth. 27:17 for her own entertainment. So now the ghosts build an interior wall room, fill it with windows, but don't put the windows in the wall. That's weird. Hang them from the ceiling. What are you doing with the windows? You freaking idiot. Here's your weekly pay. If you add that attitude to it, it does. It's way worse. Changes it. Yeah, it You like don't have to do like, but like the people they want to make an honest living. They don't want to just get money. 27:46 Nobody wants to just give money for nothing. Anyways, I don't think that's true. 27:56 Oh boy. Am I sick? I sure do need Tim stones. Get well quick trick. And what is it? It's simply chug an entire gallon of orange juice. Wow. I forgot. And then this shirt reminded me, I'm so glad that I have this shirt as a public service announcement, a public health service to other people around me. Do your part. Get this shirt. 28:25 shop.tilland.com. 28:33 She bought that house for $12,570 from a guy named John Han, who could be the same one. 28:47 stupid. No, but she so she lived in this house and what it seems like is likely be funny if you pull up a picture of John Ham, that one. Just want to a I just want to dig 29:04 just to get a John Ham rolling around in your imagination. of a John Ham. I'm watching a show right now with John Ham. I'm watching that your neighbors and for your friends and neighbors, whatever it's called. Yeah, it's crazy to me is is Gen X just getting divorced at crazy rates right now because I their divorce age. I guess I yeah, it's like fifties where you get divorced because yeah, I say like thirty five to fifty five is prime divorce years. 29:33 yeah, so I think that is yeah. Well, I mean like the rooster on HBO, which Steve Correll show it's yeah after divorce divorce. it's John Ham. His whole life is the whole show is life after divorce. Like it seems like a lot of the shows that I get recommended that are like I mean even freaking Ted Lasso yeah there's a there's life after divorce and you're just like what are we really common? 29:59 I guess, are we just trying to help people cope with it? I don't know. It feels like I think I think I think ultimately like all these shows like what they want to do is you want to be able to see yourself as the character. I think okay, that's what I'm saying yeah, and so is the audience of divorce people big enough? I guess so yeah that all the writers of these shows so many shows are like. You're gonna like those ones about the worst people 30:23 Let's find out if you're divorced. mean, I if you plan on getting a divorce, put it in the cup. Was that other Steve Carell show we watched the Four Seasons, the office? Oh yeah, the office yeah. Four Seasons was a divorce one. Yeah, don't say they're all but Four Seasons was a remake from the seventy. I know that, but I'm saying that like it's just a lot of divorce content right now. yeah, there is a lot not a lot of not a lot of married content. Yeah, you know yeah well, I if that I think it's because I think it's because marriage is boring. 30:57 it does. It is tough. I'm not talking. I mean, I do think that like I think like healthy relationships are dramatic enough for shows for sure. We and I were talking about my relationship is dramatic enough. We were we were talking about me and my wife are like James A Garfield and Chester. One day I'm going to replace her and I'm going to take her job. 31:26 no and I'm going to do it better than she ever did it. Okay, well that was I I go to every one day. I'm going to replace her. I got every work function and I tell her boss I one day I'm to take her job. I'm going to take her job. Yeah, I'm going to take her fifth grade teaching job. One day I'm going to take that job. I'm going to take this job. So you and Brie were talking about who's 31:51 Okay, whatever. We don't have to do this bit. We can do a different bit. No, we've been watching reality tv and there's a character on summer house who did not care her person. His name is carl. We're not care. had his life together for the majority of the show. Last couple of seasons he got sober, got clean and net and like started getting healthy, started exercising, opened up his own restaurant, got his life together. Yeah, 32:18 they did a spin off series that did not ask him to be a part of it and he felt a little slighted like you can tell, but it's also like you're not interesting anymore. You got your life together. You're not good for reality tv. Ryan tricky. A good friend of mine has a really funny bit or at least he used to used to now he's married and has a kid, but back when he was single, he had a bit about this girl he broke up with and he's like I broke up with her and I saw her a couple months later and she was like. I'll have you know that I've been working out and then I I wake up and I got a new job 32:46 and my life is so much better now. So what do you have to say that and he was like? Well, what are you doing on Friday? He goes, don't come to me and be like I fixed all those reasons you broke up with me. So he's like as a real so was like rich now I have a better paying job and I'm happy and I you know and he's like okay, then let's go out nice funny bit anyway. So so she 33:14 buys his house yeah. She starts expanding doing all these expansions, but what become? I should say what becomes what we think hold on speaking of reality tv yeah it by the time this comes out we're deep into big we're deep into big brother yeah, but we're not deep enough that if you're not currently on it, you can still jump in yeah. You got like a month and a half left of this game yeah and we love big brother. We've got a channel in our discord dedicated to it yeah. If you want to become a patron and 33:42 come join us talk about Big Brother. It's three episodes a week and I'm and I watched the live feeds dude. I'm in a lot of fun. It's great fun, great show. If you don't know what Big Brother is, I need a book. No, but people, I there's people who feel like they can only like survivor or Big Brother and I tell those people that they're wrong because Big Brother happens live every Thursday night. We're watching that person get evicted live, live and then you can log in at any time, any time 34:12 and just look at their watch. Just watch them. Just watch them eat their breakfast. Same thing with flock cameras. You can do the same. It's really great because like for like a summer, these sixteen people in this house in Los Angeles are like my model train set and I just get to watch them. I log in and I go look what they're doing. Look at that and then I get to judge them and I go. I would never make that decision. I would never do something like that and then the person you like the most week three turns out to cheat on his girlfriend in the house and you're like 34:42 and you're like Vinny. No man tweeting about how great you are. How much I love you and I'm like oh yes, have to delete all my tweets. My guy, my guy, guy. I've been calling you my guy. My guy's a cheater and in the end you get the final two and I do get to watch you lose and that really pays off. Really? Yeah, it's vindication. know, oh, it's so good. I've been vindicated. Yeah, for Vinny. All right. So so she moves to California and it and it 35:08 it's pretty obvious. The reason she chose to move to California was for warmer climate because she also has rheumatoid arthritis like her dad right and so her health is declining in this image. I showed you earlier. This is this is like an old school wheelchair that looks like a carrot. It does look like a real chair yeah and what is pretty clear when you look at it at the story with that lens right. These are essentially early forms of ABA compliance in her house. She's steps 35:35 longer step so she can actually like take a wheelchair down it, get down it, move around it. She built these staircases. I don't know if I've got a picture of one of these staircases somewhere. Yeah, that right there. Those are shallow stairs. Yeah, those are shallow stairs, but yeah, here's one where you see it. How it's kind of angled. There's like angles in the staircase. That's so you take no, so she can take steps and step up and then step up to the odd. The next one so she but it's not like a steep step. Oh, okay, so 36:04 she's coming up with creative ways for her to get around her big house easily. That's not as bad. Sure. There's also a famous room that the storyline is there. You walk in that room and there's four fireplaces on every wall and there's thick curtains all the way around the room. And the storyline was the lab Earth leads the ghost there and then she burns them up. She was just cold. No. Well, what it really was is this was a sauna so she could go in. Then the heat would help relax her, her 36:34 pain joints. Yeah, I feel better. So all this stuff like has a logical explanation. Ghosts don't like saunas go say it's on us and then like stuff like this door. This was there was that was for her to fall. I was for her to be like, you know, the easiest way to get downstairs is just a roll on out of here. Yeah, that was that was the elevator. Now the door was to open and let the spirits out. They were right about that. We're right. That was that. Yeah, 37:03 that was real. What does she use the door for? think no, this was this was a for a pulley system. They would stick a pulley out so an elevator lift things up yeah to the second floor and but here's the thing you'll notice in these early photos. We've got all these towers yeah, but here we obviously don't in them. Yeah, what happened? There was the San Francisco earthquake and that earthquake massive portions of the house came fell over down 37:32 and so what she did is instead of what year was the earthquake 1906 right was the San Francisco earthquake and so instead of instead of like actually like reconnecting everything the same way she took the opportunity to reconfigure a lot of the house sure and so that left some of these staircases going to nowhere. There's a lot of these dead ends because she just redesigned the house after the earthquake. She didn't like actually just like oh okay, so they like then the ghost tours just made stuff up 38:01 There's perfectly logical explanations to everything. Sure. But what happened was whenever she died, she died in 1922. And so in 1922, there was a guy by the name of John H. Brown, who was a pretty famous roller coaster designer. So here's one of his roller coasters. This is the 1902. Well, in 1922, I mean, 22, I mean, yeah, this is one of his roller coasters is called the back the back express. 38:31 the back of the back express is because you go around and then you come up and it just hits that top. Yeah, and you go backwards right and that's back to the back express yeah express and so he was a big roller coaster designer. He built theme parks. That was his thing. Sure, he found out about this house and he toward it and he's like, I know exactly what I can do it. This is a fun house is what this is right and so he creates this whole mythos of she was a crazy lady 38:58 who like was scared of the ghosts and made this labyrinth for the ghosts and created this whole storyline that stuck to this day, but he can make money off of charging a mission. Yes, yes, so he basically created the storyline that the lady he bought the house from was a psychopath yeah and and I'm going to exploit that and so he sold that story and she has no other relatives to prove me wrong. Yeah, we're like a dude. Tell me I'm wrong. Yeah, does she had. Did she didn't have kids? Huh? 39:27 I who is the Winchester fortune go to? I you know what? I don't think she had a cause they had that one kid that passed away, but I don't think she had a kid after that. I haven't heard anybody talk about it. Let's see. Let me look at her list. Yeah, she had that one child that died. So yeah, there was no relatives. She was the last one. So I must have just gone to corporate control after that, I guess. Wow. Which is crazy. But yeah. And so they they began marketing it and it's been kind of a tourist. 39:55 destination ever since as of twenty eighteen. So it's quite a while ago. It's probably significantly higher but it was a seven million dollar property. Oh It was appraised at. So the the Winchester House. Very cool. Was theoretically haunted but not really a ghost labyrinth. Yeah it's just a really early version of like accessible design that was done by someone who was just so rich. 40:25 Yeah, I wonder what they did with her money. She probably put it in like charities. She was a big charity. There was a room in the house was like in the middle where you go in there and it's like really hot and it's like you know it's hell and and the devil is just in there playing the fiddle waiting for you to join him. Twenty four seven yeah, she's trapped them in there. I have Satan trapped in one of these rooms. That's why we walled it off all it off because Satan 40:51 Hey, if you like that episode, we have another one that's kind of about another labyrinth. It was called the Latitude Society, a secret society in San Francisco. You can check out that episode. It's one of my favorites. Wonderful. If you want next week's episode right now, join us on Patreon. It's only six ninety nine six ninety nine and and come join us on there and we you know we next week's episode right now ad free and you to hang out with us in discord. So we'd love that a lot. So please share this episode with somebody and really helps us grow the show. It's like the biggest way to help the show. So just share with somebody 41:21 Thanks.


The Winchester Mystery House stands as one of America’s most enigmatic architectural marvels. For decades, the narrative surrounding its eccentric design has captivated imaginations: a grieving widow, haunted by the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles, building an endless maze to appease them. While this makes for a compelling ghost story, the truth behind Sarah Winchester and her sprawling mansion is far more nuanced, intertwined with immense wealth, profound loss, and perhaps, a quiet form of philanthropy.

The Genesis of a Fortune

Sarah Pardee was born in 1839 in Connecticut into a well-to-do family. Her life took a significant turn when she married William Wirt Winchester in 1862. At the time, William’s father, Oliver Winchester, was a successful shirt manufacturer. However, the American Civil War presented Oliver with a pivotal opportunity.

Oliver Winchester, a progressive thinker for his era, innovated a repeating rifle – the legendary Winchester Repeater. This invention transformed their family’s fortunes overnight, making them incredibly wealthy through government contracts and subsequent sales. The Winchester name became synonymous with firearms, laying the foundation for an immense inheritance.

A Decade of Unfathomable Loss

Despite their burgeoning wealth, Sarah Winchester endured a period of profound personal tragedy that would shape the rest of her life. The calamities began in 1866 with the birth of her daughter, Annie. Annie suffered from Marasmus, a rare condition preventing nutrient absorption, and tragically passed away within a month of her birth. This loss devastated Sarah and William, causing them to withdraw from society for over a year.

The sorrows continued:

  • 1869: Sarah’s father died, possibly from rheumatoid arthritis.
  • 1880: Her mother passed away.
  • December 1880: Her father-in-law, Oliver Winchester, the patriarch of the empire, died.
  • 1881: William Wirt Winchester, Sarah’s husband, succumbed to tuberculosis. Before his death, he named Sarah the executive of the family trust.

Within little more than a decade, Sarah lost her only child, her parents, and her husband. This left her as the sole inheritor of the vast Winchester fortune. In 1881, she inherited an astounding $20 million, equivalent to over $657 million today, along with a 50% ownership stake in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. This stake generated an income of $1,000 per day, translating to roughly $25,000 daily in modern currency, making her unfathomably wealthy.

The Move West and the Medium’s Alleged Counsel

Following this devastating period, Sarah spent time on the seashore and traveled to Europe. The popular narrative suggests that upon her return, a medium advised her that the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles were haunting her. To appease them and protect herself, she was instructed to move west and continuously build a house, never ceasing construction.

This tale forms the backbone of the Winchester Mystery House legend: a tormented widow, driven by spiritual fears, constructing an elaborate, confusing maze to entrap or evade malevolent ghosts. While a compelling story, its factual basis remains unproven. There’s no definitive evidence that Sarah ever consulted a medium or believed in such hauntings.

Architectural Passion and Unending Construction

Sarah eventually purchased an unfinished farmhouse in the Santa Clara Valley, California. What started as a modest nine-room residence quickly began to grow. Sarah had developed a passion for architecture and design during her time in New Haven, Connecticut, overseeing various projects.

With virtually unlimited resources, she continuously expanded the house. The mansion became a sprawling, idiosyncratic structure featuring:

  • Staircases that led to ceilings or dead ends.
  • Doors that opened onto solid walls or dangerous drops outside.
  • Rooms with multiple fireplaces and windows looking into other rooms.
  • Intricate and often illogical layouts.

For years, construction on the house continued 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, transforming it into the labyrinthine structure we know today. At its peak, the house reportedly had hundreds of rooms, sprawling across several acres.

The True Motives: More Than Just Ghosts?

While the ghost story makes for sensational tourism, historical analysis suggests more pragmatic and benevolent reasons behind Sarah’s incessant building:

1. Health and Accessibility

Sarah Winchester suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis, much like her father. The warmer California climate offered relief from her symptoms. Many of the house’s peculiar features, such as shallow-rise staircases and ramps, can be interpreted as early forms of accessible design, intended to make movement easier for her. A famous “sauna room” with four fireplaces, often attributed to burning ghosts, was likely a space for heat therapy to alleviate her joint pain.

2. Economic Relief During the Great Depression

Sarah lived through the Great Depression. The constant construction projects employed numerous carpenters, masons, and laborers, providing steady work and income to her community during a time of widespread unemployment. While she could have simply given money away, providing honorable work was perhaps her chosen method of philanthropy.

3. Rebuilding After Disaster

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake severely damaged the house, causing several stories and towers to collapse. Instead of restoring it to its previous configuration, Sarah seized the opportunity to reconfigure and redesign sections. This post-earthquake reconstruction often led to new dead ends, non-functional doorways, and other architectural quirks that later fueled the “ghost maze” narrative.

The Birth of the Mystery House Legend

Sarah Winchester passed away peacefully in 1922. Without direct heirs, the house was eventually sold. John H. Brown, a prominent roller coaster and theme park designer, purchased the property. Recognizing its unique, bizarre architecture and the public’s fascination with the macabre, Brown shrewdly crafted the “haunted house” narrative. He spun tales of Sarah’s supposed obsession with ghosts and her endless construction to appease them, effectively turning the property into a lucrative tourist attraction.

Today, the Winchester Mystery House continues to draw visitors from around the world, eager to explore its oddities and immerse themselves in the legend. While the sensational story of a ghost-haunted widow remains popular, a deeper look reveals Sarah Winchester as a complex figure: a woman of immense wealth and personal tragedy, who found solace in architectural design and, perhaps, quietly extended a helping hand to her community.

Her legacy, much like her house, remains a fascinating blend of fact, folklore, and profound human experience.


Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning and laughing a lot while you do, you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode right now!

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Sources

Sarah Winchester – Wikipedia


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